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9-11, We Will Never Forget… Or Have We?

I was sitting on my sofa when the Today Show came back from commercial break reporting a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Once a camera was in place to show the graphic image of the plane, a second plane flew into the building adjacent it.

Moments later I was on the phone with my mother, she was the only person I wanted to talk to.

Almost immediately all media was focused on the twin towers of New York. The world’s eyes were transfixed.

I ran out to get a pack of cigarettes and arrived back at home just in time to see the first tower fall. I called my mother again and together we cried.

For the rest of that day I didn’t move from in front of my TV screen, I smoked the pack of cigarettes, watched the coverage, cried and felt numb to the world around me. I was engulfed by fear.

Over the next several days I spent many hours in front of my television. I also spent many hours with my friends, neighbors and people I didn’t know, remembering the dead. We volunteered for those in need and comforted those who hurt.

In the days and weeks after 9-11, America’s best came forward and we became the more perfect Union that our forefathers envisioned for us.

As our nation rallied we united behind the moniker, “We Will Never Forget.”

Today, September 11, 2016, our social media feeds will be filled with photos and announcements….. “We Will Never Forget,” but have we already forgotten?

Much has changed in the 15 years since that fateful day. My mother passed and I still want to call her, I no longer smoke, our personal liberties have been set aside for the security of our nation, thousands of Americans have died in war, we now fight ISIS instead of Al Qaeda and……. we have forgotten.

Long gone are the days of unity we all experienced immediately following 9-11

Today we are a divided America, we are an offended America, we are an angry America and a lost America.

If we truly never forget, we will all rededicate ourselves to the ideals we as Americans embraced following September 11th, 2001, the day our lives changed, for the worse and we called upon our best.

As you read this if you are thinking, that’s right, THEY have changed and THEY have moved away from those inspired days during the Fall of 2001, then YOU AND ME are the problem, YOU have changed and YOU and WE need to remember, reflect and dedicate ourselves to the spirit of America we all felt 15 years ago.

It is up to ALL of us, do we continue along the path of divisiveness or do we become a unified America, that can honor our differences and emulate the ideals that we were founded upon?

The ideals we felt when we promised to never forget!

The ideals we displayed, when we promised those who died that WE WILL NEVER FORGET, we owe that to them, don’t we?